A conference on "Embryonic Origins of Defective Heart Development" will be sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences in May, 1989. The proceedings from the conference will be published as an Annual of the Academy in 1989 or 1990. We are in a period of unusually rapid expansion of knowledge concerning the basis for congenital cardiac defects. The purpose of the conference will be to bring together established and newer investigators who are making these advances and whose contributions from different perspectives will produce not only a state-of-the-art summary of this area, but also will provide the greatest possibility of providing an environment which will suggest unique approaches. The three-day meeting will consist of the six sessions listed below. In addition, a poster session will be held the first evening. Preliminary and summary presentations by session chairmen and scheduled general discussions will provide prospective and retrospective integration. I. Normal and defective development of the heart. II. Cell-cell interactions and extracellular matrix. III. Membrane and control phenomena. IV. Membrane channels. V. Molecular biology, contractile proteins, angiogenesis. VI. Experimentally induced developmental defects. The plan of these sessions is to start with the most recent knowledge of morphological and functional development as a common base of understanding, then to relate cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, cellular- and neuro-physiology to the process, finally addressing the problem of cardiac dysmorphogenesis by highlighting recent advances using new models of cardiac malformation. It is anticipated that new approaches will be suggested and new collaborations will result from this conference, providing new understandings of congenital heart defects.